The federal government’s ban on sports betting is costing the National Football League and its television partners and advertisers millions of regular viewers, says new research commissioned by the American Gaming Association.
The research, based on a survey by Nielsen Sports of U.S. adults who bet on sports in the past year, found bettors watched 19 more games in the 2015 regular season than adults who didn’t bet at all and generated more than double the ratings across the major broadcast and cable networks compared to average American adults.
If sports betting were legalized, the number of those viewers would have jumped from 40 million to 57 million, with bettors comprising 36 percent of the total NFL audience and consume 56 percent of all minutes viewed of regular season games.
Nielsen’s research also found that direct betting on games is twice as popular as daily fantasy sports among sports fans defined as “avid”. Among NFL-specific bettors, 46 percent bet on a single-game outcome versus 28 percent who played fantasy sports.
Forty-four percent of NFL bettors consider themselves “avid” fans, according to the survey, versus 10 percent of non-bettors.
“The federal government ban on sports betting is failing miserably,” said Geoff Freeman, president and chief executive of the AGA, the federal lobbying arm of the land-based casino industry. “Broadcasters and advertisers who desire highly engaged viewers would reap the benefits of shifting tens of millions of sports bettors from the $150 billion underground betting market to a legal, transparent environment that’s similar to what exists in Nevada, across Europe and elsewhere around the world.”
The survey was conducted nationally among 1,000 respondents 18 and older. An additional 500 pre-qualified NFL bettors were also surveyed to ensure proper samples were met.
Meanwhile, former NBA head David Stern is already talking about legal sports betting as he prepares to come out in favor of expanding sports betting at a Las Vegas gambling conference.
Stern has been a longtime opponent of sports betting, especially during his 30-year tenure as commissioner of the National Basketball Association. He told the San Francisco Chronicle that the rise of daily fantasy sports has changed his mind. He says daily fantasy wagering has paved the way for legal sports betting throughout the United States and that the NBA should go “all in.”
“It seems to be an inexorable march, and it’s time to come up with a strategy that gets the various stakeholders together and see what changes, if any, make sense,” Stern said.
When daily fantasy “became a place where people could bet money and make a financial return, I thought that was one of the last barriers to the opposition to legalized gambling on sports,” he added.
Stern will appear at the Global Gaming Expo in conversation with American Gaming Association CEO Geoff Freeman to discuss how sports betting should be managed in the United States.
Stern told the Chronicle, that he thinks “one set of federal regulations” should apply to all 50 states. “This is a subject that is crying out for federal review of the entire situation,” he said.
Stern also believes the NBA should be compensated for its “intellectual property” for providing the “statistical story,” as well as any logos, trademarks or team names used by sports books or other gaming entities.
